Next week is LearnTech Asia – a learning and development conference that will be hosted in Singapore. It’s also my FIRST OVERSEAS LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE and I have a speaking gig! (Except for the time I went to the Rotary International Conferences in Birmingham and Los Angeles but they don’t count).
I was close to turning down the invitation to speak there but the more I thought about it, the more I realised that there was a massive missing gap in my own knowledge and it was evident when I recently completed FutureLearn’s MOOC called We We Post: The Anthropology of Social Media.
That course made an impact on me because it challenged my assumptions about how we learn and why we use social media and networks. As a woman of the western world, I realised I had zero perspectives or understandings of Asian cultures, influences and working. I wondered if my view was a skewed one because of the comfort level I feel when using social networks to tap into global networks.
Did other people feel the same way?
Were other cultures open or not as open to social and collaborative learning, working and connecting?
Was I making some huge assumptions about how we learn and not taking into account other cultural and societal norms and values that I’m not aware of?
So I agreed to go along and find out.
I’ll be presenting the session on Curating for Personal Learning. The presentation will focus on how the audience members (that is, the individual themselves) can develop curation skills to create their own personal learning experiences. The perspective will be on helping people help themselves first BEFORE they try to influence, guide and empower others to do the same. The more work I do with people, the more I realise that success really is determined by how ready they are to learn and grow themselves NOT by considering how they can push it to others. Role modelling is important.
My plan for the conference is:
(a) Attend the sessions that have examples and cases of Asia business, industry or case examples.
(b) Meet the people I have met online in social networks in person (I think this will be the lovely part to the conference).
(c) Invite to connect on LinkedIn to all the keynote speakers at the conference. (TICK, DONE!)
(d) Create a video for LearningNow TV
(e) Inspire conference delegates to do one thing – something completely new and out of their comfort zone which includes sharing their learning, perspectives or story via social networks openly and publicly.
(f) Share a LinkedIn video from the Conference about something that stands out for me and which would be relevant to people who follow on LinkedIn.
A few weeks back, I looked through LinkedIn and found all the presenters and sent them a personal video of introduction through LinkedIn. A couple of them have been kind enough to respond and others accepted the invitation to connect. I’m looking forward to learning more about them and their business.
Although the conference is next week, one of my greatest joys in my life is to travel and can quite comfortably travel on my own. I will have four days prior to the conference acting like a tourist, soaking in the culture and heritage of Singapore. I plan to spend much of my time exploring the museums, galleries and historical sites – maybe an orchid garden or two – and learning more about its rich culture (and tasting their food). I plan to stay away from shopping centres.
While there, hopefully, I can catch up with my various friends from social networks who could give me the locals perspective.
My two personal things to do in Singapore is:
(1) Go to the Changi Museum and Chapel
(2) Sip a cocktail at an old colonial style bar wearing my linen suit, fanning myself with my straw hat all the while complaining to no one in particular about the oppressive humidity. (Alas, I read that Raffles is closed until 2018 – ARGH!)
Everything else is just a bonus – I’m playing it by ear.
Here’s how I planned out my Curation for Personal Learning presentation for the conference.
Are you going to Singapore? Let me know!
